The present invention relates to a balance with a weighing compartment that borders on a stationary part of the balance and is otherwise enclosed by at least one side wall, a front wall, and a top cover panel, where at least one of the walls and/or the top cover panel is slidable by means of a guiding device to open and close the weighing compartment.
A known balance of this kind, as described for example in the European patent application EP-A-0 234 008, has a weighing pan and a weighing compartment that encloses the weighing pan on all sides, with a stationary front glass wall, rearward-sliding side walls, a rearward-sliding top cover panel, and a connector that joins the side walls with the top cover panel. The connector is configured so that when a side wall and/or the top cover panel is opened or closed, the connector moves together with the side wall and/or the top cover panel, so that the weighing compartment is freely accessible without being obstructed by frame members on the sides. Furthermore, the side walls can be opened and closed individually or together, with or without moving the top cover panel at the same time. The movement can be motorized or manual. With manual operation, the walls that are to be moved are uncoupled from the motorized drive mechanism.
The European patent application EP-A-0 574 668 discloses a balance that has a draft-protection housing with a top cover panel that can be attached or taken off by means of a manually operated locking arrangement. After the top cover panel has been taken off, the front wall as well as the side walls can be completely removed from the housing for cleaning. In this known design of a balance, the top cover panel is part of a frame that holds the draft-protection housing together. To a certain extent, the walls are unobstructed by the frame members so that the operator has a better view of the interior of the housing, but for some applications, this design is still not entirely satisfactory. One drawback is that the upper part of the frame is still a required element, and another concern is that the locking elements, which have to be manufactured with high precision, require a certain amount of manipulation in order to align them with the recesses in which they are received.
In state-of-the-art balances, if conduits, hoses, or other connections have to be introduced into the weighing compartment in a flexible, non-permanent arrangement, a slidable side wall or the top cover panel has to stay at least partially open during the weighing process, because the rigid frames and complicated guiding devices do not allow the walls to be provided with individual, easily accessible conduit passages. However, leaving a wall open can cause errors in the weighing result.
In essence, known balances suffer from the drawback that they do not simultaneously allow free, unrestricted access to the weighing compartment as well as an unobstructed view of the weighing pan. Simultaneous access from the side and from above is not possible, a problem that applies in particular to the accessibility for conduits, hoses or other connections.